


Walking Molly down the Aisle

by Bodhicitta



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: But He's Learning, F/M, More tags to follow, Post-TFP, Season 4 Spoilers, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper Fluff, Sherlock is not good at feelings, Sherlolly - Freeform, Slow Burn, TFP - Freeform, The Final Problem, mollock, very slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:52:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10034807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodhicitta/pseuds/Bodhicitta
Summary: Three times Sherlock walks Molly down the aisle.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A drabble - is this drabble? Please tell me in comments.
> 
> I am TERRIBLE at titles - HELP!!!! (comments, please)

He vowed not to muck this one up for her.  He adjusted his dark blue suit jacket - no tuxedos for this venue.  Molly wanted a simple wedding.

He stared straight ahead and tried not to deduce the entire assembled party.

When she asked him to walk her down the aisle, he didn't know if his heart sunk or soared.  Their friendship had suffered so terribly, and the death blow had almost come in the form of his sister and her maniacal plot to eviscerate Sherlock's heart one sinew at a time.

"So will you, _Sherlock_?"  She said his name with that particular inflection she had used during The Call.  

Sher.  

Lock.  

One syllable at a time.  Like she was reaching past his name into some essential part of himself.  As if she thought his name was somehow not his real name....And she continued saying his name this way.

"Sherlock?  Answer, please.  Please answer me."

"Of course I will.  Of course I'll walk you down the aisle.  We're friends, after all.  We're friends."

 _We're friends._ He didn't know why he had said it twice.  Once would have sufficed.

The entire wedding party stood, and Sherlock was roused from his reverie.

He turned slightly to his left to see Molly approach the open doors to the sanctuary.

_Something white, she's all in white, and her hair all pulled back, like, tight, in a bun, I think they call it, and, oh, she's waiting for me._

She was standing just beside him.  He moved his left arm slightly to indicate that she should take it.

Her hand slipped into the space between his arm and his body, curled slightly, hesitatingly onto his bicep.  

_Her little fingers..._

She turned her head (that delicate head, like a ballet dancer), and looked up at him.  Her unsmiling face had the beginnings of worry, and her eyes were as large as saucers.

How adorable she must have been as a little girl, all plump cheeks and eyes and too much hair and sweetness - saving birds and helping other children with their homework.

Little girl....And he gulped down the giant hollow in his chest.  Stretched out his neck to relieve the pressure on his tie.  Something in his throat, welling up.  

She looked at him, her impassive face turning to a question.  The edges of her mouth began to dip down slightly.  He turned back to face ahead.  Began walking down the aisle, and she followed his lead, trusting him.

As they approached the altar, he realized - _I don't know to whom she is getting married._

The groom turned to face them, a smile breaking on his face.

Greg.

Sherlock woke up and clutched his chest.  Stood up, padded on bare feet to the window, looked out at the pre-dawn sky.  Pools of water and oil and dog urine and restaurant run-off gave the streets an otherworldly sheen.

 _Today,_ he thought, _Today I will tell her...._

 


	2. City Hall

The seventh ninja was expected and well-prepared for.  But the third Chechen assassin took him a bit off guard.  After refreshing his tea, Sherlock had settled back into his favorite chair and was preparing to do some housecleaning in some of the dustier rooms of his Mind Palace when the door busted open ("Really?" he exclaimed, reluctantly setting his tea cup down. "That's the literally the tenth time this morning!"), and the occupants of 221B Baker Street began mano a mano combat in earnest.

After nine fraught minutes, Sherlock dispatched the third rebel against Russian imperialism with a skillfully aimed head-butt. Taking a Sharpie to the dazed soldier's expansive forehead, Sherlock wrote a note to the man's commander that the World's Only Consulting Detective could be persuaded to do some work for their side if the nature and cause for certain troop movements could be made known to The British Government.

After shoving the soldier in a cab, climbing back up the steps, and surveying the damage to his newly renovated flat, his phone buzzed.

_Molly._

He answered immediately.  He was getting better at that, making an effort. He noted a bit of distraction in her voice.  Street noises.  She was looking back and forth from right to left.  Crossing Brixton.  Phone pressed to her face.  Out of breath.  Hurrying somewhere.  She's late.

"There's something I need you to do for me today.  Will you do it?"

"Yes, of course.  You're my friend."

_I would do anything for you, Molly Hooper._

She asks him to meet her at a certain address.  He knows that address but is too busy fighting off a massive black Schuzthund to allow the location to rise to his conscious mind.

While fending off two more attackers, Sherlock notices his phone buzzing again:

Sherlock?  Are you coming?

Of late he had begun to notice a lack of a clear boundary between time spent in his Mind Palace and what some would call real life.  Instantaneously, as if a key transition was excised from a movie, he is walking up the steps to town hall.  

Molly Hooper is waiting for him at the top of the steps.  

Sherlock appraises her shyly.  He knows she does not like it when he is obviously deducing her, so he quickly sweeps his eye up and down her frame.  

She has on almost no makeup, except for her eyes - they are made up heavily made up, smokey, making them look as large as a cow's eyes.  Almost no other makeup but for a swipe of sheer lip gloss.  

Her hair is loose, hanging straight down.

She is wearing a short white skirt that just touches the tops of her knees.  Bare legs. She's done that thing women do with the wax - applying the wax and then ripping it off, taking the hair and a good portion of upper epidermis with it.  Her legs gleam like cream-colored marble.

On her feet, white ballet flats - most impractical for a chilly spring day.  A simple white cotton short-sleeved shirt with a lace collar.  The same sweater she wore at Rosie's christening.  

She is clean and bright like a new penny, like a tiny white Convallaria majalis blossom.  

She holds out her hand, clasping something, and then she opens her hand palm facing up.

"Can you put this on me?  I couldn't get it on this morning."

A single strand of pearls.  For some reason, his heart clenches.  

He takes the pearls in hand while she turns, lifting the canopy of her hair off of her shoulders.  He affixes the pearls about her neck and almost places his hands on her shoulders, but as his hands hover there, she turns her profile to him.

"There's something else I need you to do for me."

His heart races. Maybe in this iteration, he will be the groom.  He wasn't sure if he liked that idea.  Pulling her into his dangers.  It was bad enough, what happened with Eurus.  The cameras - such an invasion.  The threat.  It could have been so much worse.

"Sherlock, without asking why, please get some flowers."  

Flowers both connote and denote things in their world, the world of the ordinary people.  He racked his brain for possibilities.  A funeral, maybe.  A birthday party.

She explained he was to go to a flower vendor, any vendor.

He shook his head, furrowed his brow.  "Why?"

"Will you do this for me?  Sherlock?"

"Of course I will.  We're friends."

_We're friends._

When he returned, he handed the daisies to her.  He had not taken pains to select the most beautiful blossoms. Some were crushed.  The flowers were mismatched and clearly days old.  

Still, she smiled down at them.  "Okay, Sherlock, let's go in."

"You're a bit over dressed up to get your pet license renewed, don't you think?"

"You know that's not what's happening Sherlock."  She turned to face him directly.  "I want you to wake up now."

_But I'm not ready to wake up._

"But it's past time."

And she slapped him.

"Molly, why do you keep slapping me?"

"Because we are friends."

Inside, Molly transferred the flowers to her left hand and slipped her right hand into the space between his arm and his body.  It felt like a sylph was alighting on his arm.  She led him past the dog licensing office, past the tax records clerk, down a dusty hallway, past restrooms and tiny offices and leaky water fountains.  Pushed through a creaking wooden door.  

A little girl chirped, "Molly!"  Rosie hugged Molly's legs and grabbed the hem of her skirt.

John Watson, wearing his best suit, was facing them when they entered.

Why was John here?

John.

For some unaccountable reason, his heart broke.

Not because he felt betrayed.

But because he knew - this was right.  This was right and good.  It was right and good that two fine people should marry one another.  Even if Molly and John didn't share anything that could be properly labelled passion, even if there was no heat between them, they had a mutual regard for one another, and shared values (goodness and honesty and all the things Sherlock was so bad at)...

And most important of all, a shared love of Rosie. 

Dear Rosie.  And didn't she deserve a mother - a living mother - who truly loved her, and as well as a father?

This was right and good and true.  The way it should be. Even if it meant Molly was settling. Never before would he have contemplated saying that a woman's choice to marry John Watson was "settling," but Sherlock knew - Molly was settling for something that was not her heart's desire; she was settling for a man who did not truly love her. John had regard for her, and affection, and admiration, and respect.  

Most important of all, John Watson wanted to see her happy - and that was enough to carry anyone through a lifetime.  Sherlock gulped.  As long as she was happy, he could stomach this.  If she were really happy, and not just pretending to be.  

Molly turned to him, handed Rosie to him.  

In his smallest voice, he asked her, "But...but why am I here?" 

She looked down, trying to say it as kindly as possible.  "Well...we...we need a witness."

For only the second time in his life, Sherlock woke up sobbing.


	3. The Cathedral, part 1

Molly.  Her face as sweet as a lily-of-the-valley.  She looked up at him through a tremendous veil, dotted with embroidered lily-of-the-valley.

In her hands, a bouquet of lily-of-the-valley.

_This is a dream - no one likes lily of the valley this much._

Sherlock adjusted his morning coat.  

Rosie toddled out before them, on fat little legs sausaged into white tights.  The wedding coordinator straightened the big white bow on her dress and pushed her from behind.  The entire assemblage cooed and aww-ed as she ambled down the aisle, scattering pink rose petals from her little white basket.

Molly is already imagining her babies playing with Rosie.  Her hand moves imperceptibly to her belly - imperceptible to The Unobservant.  

She may already be pregnant.

She _is_.

"That was out loud, Sherlock."  Her face broke into a wide sunbeam.

Will I ever see that again, he wondered.  That sunshine on her face...directed up at me.

"Also. Out. Loud." she muttered into his left shoulder.

He realized he had been here before, in a dream or in his Mind Palace.

Who was the groom?  Dammit he had to know - before he led her down this aisle, an aisle like an airport runway, past hundreds of guests, and all of London society it seemed - he had to know.

Who had impregnanted her?

Who had she allowed into her sweet, lovely body?

"Sherlock!" her eyes widening in frustration and embarrassment.

Who.

Was...

...the groom?


End file.
